Taiwan president seeks peace with China

Sat, 01 Jan 2011

Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, in his New Year speech on Saturday, called for Taipei and Beijing to put aside their differences and seek peace.

"Cross-Strait peace and stability is the cornerstone for peace in East Asia and is the responsibility of both Taiwan and the mainland," Ma said at a ceremony at the Presidential Office.

"The two sides should replace confrontation with cooperation, and should put aside differences and seek long-term peace," he said.

He also stressed that Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China, is a sovereign state, and that Taiwan's success in achieving democracy can serve as an example for China.

Since Ma took office in 2008, he has been pushing for economic cooperation with China, and Taiwan has signed 15 trade pacts with Beijing.

The most important one, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, took effect Saturday.

Under the deal, which is similar to the free-trade agreement, the two sides agreed to cut tariffs on a total of 806 industrial items over a period of two years.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/360341,president-seeks-peace-china.html.